The core of the infrastructure for an industrialized economy
consists of manufacturing, communications and transportation. In turn,
each piece of the infrastructure may constitute a self-sufficient industry of
its own. In most countries, the sale and re-sale of automobiles are
considered a major component of economic activities.

Although the roads in many Latin American countries seemed to
be clogged with automobiles all day and all night, it does not necessarily mean
that everybody goes everywhere in their own automobiles. Mass
transportation still serves a significant portion of the population.
Furthermore, automobiles are durable consumer goods that are fairly expensive to
purchase and maintain. Once purchased, an automobile will serve the owner
for years, even decades. This means that, at any point in time, only a
small percentage of the population are 'in the market' for automobile purchases,
so to speak.

We will now cite some survey data from the TGI Latina
study. This survey study includes 34,938 persons between the ages of 20 to
64 years old from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru and
Venezuela who were interviewed during 2001. The projected universe is
123,883,000 persons. According to the TGI Latina study, 6.6% of
these people classified themselves as a decision maker for the next automobile
purchase.

The next table shows the demographic breakdown of these
automobile purchase decision makers.

The characterization of these automobile purchase
decision makers is primarily along two themes: male and affluent. However,
affluent male persons do not account for 100% of all these people by any means.

When people go shopping for new automobiles, they
have different criteria based upon their own circumstances. Here is a slew
of factors that may be considered important:

The next two graphs are correspondence analysis
maps that show the relationships between these factors and the two demographic
variables: gender and socio-economic level. By gender, young men are apt
to be more concerned about speed as well as the image and advertising whereas
women are more likely to listen to recommendations from other people. By
socio-economic level, the lower classes are more sensitive to issues of prices
and operating costs while the upper classes are more concerned with image,
reputation and looks. These results can hardly be described as new
revelations.